With quality, diversity, nutrition and convenience being important criteria, foreign brands that cater to busy urban lifestyles and customers’ needs are preferred. Fruit, meat and seafood from Australasia, South-East Asia and South America are among the most popular goods with categories like beef and shrimp rising 6-fold.

These trends show great opportunities for quality food brands, but it is crucial to be aware of the differences in customer segments and regions, and knowing how to cater to them in a discerning market like Mainland China.

Welcome to this week's skinny on China. Below you'll find a couple of articles about less mainstream and customizable products making headway in China. It's another signal that Chinese consumers are maturing and becoming increasingly adventurous, with a bigger appetite to deviate from the conformists. That's great news for niche products, especially online. It's still not easy, but it's getting easier for smaller businesses with unique products hoping to make inroads in China. Following are the usual insights into China's consumers and the Chinese market. Enjoy!

Welcome to this week's skinny on China. With most Chinese having returned from holiday and back to the normal routine, we're starting to see the data for one of China's most important periods. Golden September and Silver October are traditionally China’s strongest months for residential real estate, yet sales have been subdued so far this year. While the property folk may be grieving, the travel agents are thrilled – China’s consumers spent 44% more than last year on tourism during October’s Golden Week holiday, with a 41% increase in visitors to the nation’s top attractions. For those travelling overseas, transactions increased by 33% on Union Pay, China’s bank card payment system. Although the numbers were boosted by combining Mid-Autumn Festival and October National Day, it's not bad growth, even by China’s standards.

In other news, inflation for the year to September clocked in at 1.9%, much more manageable than last year's 6.1%, bringing good news to consumers and signs of an increasingly realistic Chinese market. Following are the usual news and views on China's consumers. Enjoy!

Chinese Consumers

Chinese Consumers Increasingly Divided: Worth noting is the increasing emotional purchases by the young and affluent (earning more than $16K p.a.). They're expected to make up more than 50% of the market by 2020, so watch them closely.

Welcome to this week's skinny on China. The holiday that started on Monday is one of the biggest of the year in China – the Mid-Autumn Festival and October National Day rolled into one long week. Unlike Chinese New Year when billions of trips are made as Chinese return home to their families, this week is often for pleasure travel. 660 million Chinese are picked to travel, up 8.8% from last year. So wherever you are, whether it's Shanghai or Sydney, it's likely you'll see more Chinese tourists than usual – including an increasing number of independent Chinese travellers. Hopefully those tourists are buying what you're selling. Enjoy this week's skinny…

Home Depot Learns Chinese Prefer 'Do-It-for-Me: Do Chinese like DIY? Why get dirty when there's a plethora of labour who'll do it for cheap. Lessons from Home Depot and other companies not picking differences in the Chinese market.

Lessons From Home Depot's China Failure: Another take on Home Depot's failure in China including Lessons from western businesses in China – those who've misread it like Home Depot & Mattel versus those who've done their due diligence like Yum!Brands.

The Number: $10 Trillion: A five minute video about Michael Silverstein's new book, the $10 Trillion Prize emphasising the importance of engaging Chinese & Indian consumers. Although I'd dispute that Chinese are "much more brand loyal than US consumers" and India's population is 1.4 billion?

Internet & Social Media

Air France-KLM To Develop Chinese Social Media Products: Air France-KLM is investing significantly in Chinese social media as part of it's several-hundred million Euro plan to increase it's competitiveness. No specifics, but they're in talks with Sina Weibo to offer the service abroad

The China Market

Mobile Phones

Samsung Retains Top Spot In China's Smartphone Market: If you're developing smartphone apps or optimising your site for Chinese consumers, it's good to know what they're using. Samsung remains the top seller in the Chinese smartphone market with 20.4% of sales last month, Apple picked up a bit from 5.6% to 7.5% and Chinese brands ZTE, Lenovo and Huawei upped their share from 11.8% to 14.3%.

'Good Enough' Cars At $7K Each Keeps Chinese Consumers Happy: Chinese car manufacturers are cutting costs and lead times – developed in half the time as the established manufacturers abroad. The increasing demand signals some Chinese consumers are more concerned about price than the number of crash tests.

There's been a lot of talk this week, and for many weeks now, about China's slowing economy and how it translates to doom and gloom for businesses exporting to China. While a number of brands have lowered sales forecasts in China, there are still many businesses seeing runaway growth in China. To name a few, Nestle sales grew 20% last year, and they're expecting double-digit growth in 2013, Pernod Ricard's sales of wine and spirits have increased 15% in Asia for the year, with China being the shining star for the region, and General Motors had a record August in China, growing 7.3% from last year.

Like every market, China will have boom and bust cycles. But with many product segments and geographies still relatively untapped, a well planned and executed strategy presents significant opportunities for growth in China, even when overall spending slows. This week has the usual Chinese marketing news, insights and opinions that may contribute to that strategy. Hopefully some of it helps you…

Internet & Mobile

China's Low-Trust Ethos May Slowly Be Changing: The creation of globally trusted business frameworks like Alibaba is giving a trustworthy environment online for Chinese consumers and enabling a new generation of Chinese innovators.

Chinese Internet Lukewarm On iPhone 5: Does the iPhone 5 have enough new bells & whistles to help Apple gain ground on Samsung in the smartphone market in China? Posts of Weibo have been lukewarm.

Anti-Japanese sentiment has been all over China this week. The 81st anniversary of Japan’s invasion into China, coupled with the poorly-timed Japanese Government purchase of the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, has seen tempers flare on the mainland. Street protests in more than 80 Chinese cities, burning Japanese flags and the odd trashed car has seen many Japanese companies halt business in China and kept expats barricading themselves indoors.

Nowhere has the anti-Japanese discussion been more prevalent than on Weibo. Bloggers are calling for all Chinese consumers to steer clear of Japanese products, with some even suggesting that if China stopped buying them, 50% of Japanese would lose their jobs. A gross exaggeration even with China accounting for 21% of Japan's trade, but a sign that Chinese are becoming increasingly aware of their importance in the world as consumers (sometimes over-inflated) and the influence they have through social media.

A few street demonstrations won’t do much to temper Chinese consumers' appetites, so rather than worry if your sushi's been poisoned, it's time to focus on how to get more Chinese to buy your wares. Happy reading…

This week Alibaba Group, who own China's leading eCommerce platforms Taobao, TMall and Alibaba, announced that it's online retail sales will hit 1 Trillion RMB ($158 billion USD) this year. That's big, much bigger than eBay's $60 billion last year, and further evidence that Chinese consumers love to shop online. If the web, mobiles and eCommerce isn't a key part of your China strategy, you've got a bit of work to do. But don't let that work distract you from the most important thing you can do this week – catching up with the latest news, views and insights into China's market and Chinese consumers ;-). Enjoy…

Social Media

China Social Media Usage Analysed: An infographic showing Chinese social media user data translated into English on chinaskinny.com. As a sign of China's growing incomes, household incomes of the top-4 networks' users are now over $15,000 USD.

China's Social Media Boom: Chinese Internet users are much more likely to use social media that other countries netizens – 91% in the past 6-months compared with 67% in the US. A good McKinsey report.

eCommerce

Winning At E-Commerce In China: Nielsen's high level eCommerce strategies for China backed up by some stats, including 85% of Chinese consumers regularly share their online purchasing experiences on Social Media.

Fashion

Chinese Fashion Brands Look West: Chinese fashion retailers expanding to the west – and hoping it will drive a few sales back home as well. Bosideng is spending £35m on it's Oxford Street flagship store to kick things off.

Every week China is abound with interesting going-ons, but what caught my eye this week was the activity around the new pair of ‘Pants’ towering over the city of Sozhou in Jiangsu Province. Weibo users have been making thousands of comments about Sozhou’s newest skyscraper, Gate of the Orient, a tower resembling a pair of trousers almost as tall as New York’s Chrysler Building.

Pants aside, the week has also seen the usual spread of helpful and insightful news & views to help you sell more in China. Enjoy!

Criminals Fleece Chinese Consumers Via eCommerce: Once bitten, twice shy Chinese consumers prefer trusted methods such as Alipay and proven sites such as Taobao/Tmall given almost a third of China’s 198 million online shoppers have been duped by scam sites.

The past week has seen a flurry of statistics circulated about food safety in China, which has a silver lining for anyone exporting food and beverage to China. The most eye-opening statistic is that 61% of Chinese consumers are less confident about local food and beverage than they were last year (more below). Perceptions appear to be getting worse, not better, since the Asian Development Bank estimated in 2007 that as many as 300 million Chinese are affected by foodborne diseases annually.

But opportunities in China obviously span far wider than just feed and water, and this week’s skinny has the usual scoops, pointers and recommendations to help you tap into them. As always, please share the love and pass this onto anyone who may find it useful, as James M. Barrie once said, “Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.”

Understanding Chinese Consumers

Meet The New Consumers: 43% of Chinese consumers willing to try new and untested products (the global average is 32%), this and some other good insights into the new Chinese consumers.

Asia’s Shopping Passion Cools: Asia’s shopping obsession may be softening, but China growth still up 13% for July from last year – and leading the growth

Remaking ‘Made-In-China’: 83 slides, but worth a read for a good perspective on how Chinese brands can rise to take on the worlds best – there’s a big emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility in there.

Food & Beverage

Chinese Consumers Turn Toward Imported Food: As above, 61% of Chinese consumers are less confident about local food and beverage than they were last year, and 28% plan to buy more imported stuff. Dairy is the most purchased import at 77%.

Bicycles

Chinese cyclists in high-end gear change: A good example of another category Chinese consumers are going upmarket. Here’s hoping this is a taste of things to come and more Chinese get out of cars and onto bikes.

Another week and a big week for the folks at Sina Weibo. Figures released this week announced that as at June 30, there were 368 million registered Weibo users, showing healthy growth in spite of well publicised censorship-blips on the service. Chinese users realise this is a necessary evil of using Weibo and it seems to have had little impact on the Weibo's increasing influence for China consumers. On the subject of consumers, this week's skinny has some insightful news, advice and opinions including understanding Chinese consumers, branding, retail, luxury goods, outbound tourism, health & fitness and cars in China.

Understanding Chinese Consumers

Decoding The Chinese Consumer: China remains a nation of savers relative to Western consumers. But it's not all stuffed under the mattress. Here's some useful analysis for when they are spending.

Learning Curve For Consumers: Chinese consumer characteristics in the eyes of a Chinese expert – the disparity between cities is exaggerated, differences in post-90s born and the older and more.

Another week and another stellar Olympic games has wrapped up. The Games brought Chinese tourists in droves to London, spending more than any other visitors. Back home, Chinese fans went crazy on Weibo, posting 119 million microblogs for the opening ceremony alone; notably more than Twitter’s 10 million tweets.

Hopefully your transition to post-Olympic reality hasn’t been too difficult and you’re back on the bandwagon refining a marketing strategy that Chinese will love. This week’s skinny should help, providing the usual spread of news, advice and opinions to deepen your knowledge of the China market including understanding Chinese consumers, branding, luxury goods, mobiles and gadgets in China.

Another week and another round of beautiful news, advice and opinions to deepen your knowledge of selling to Chinese consumers. In this week's line up you can indulge yourself in understanding Chinese consumers, Chinese retail, the Internet in China, mobile phones, luxury goods and food and beverage in China.

Mobile Phones

Luxury Goods

Significant Change in Spending Patterns on Luxury Items in China: A Ruder Finn/Ipsos China survey illustrates the importance of Social Media in influencing Chinese consumers to purchase of luxury brands, Europe still holds top-10 luxury brands in China and shoes, cosmetics, wines & spirits doing best. Chinese are also buying more luxury goods on the mainland.

Food & Beverage in China

Chinese Consumers Consider McDonalds Healthy Food: Although there were pirated copies of Supersize Me all over China a few years back, Chinese still consider Big Mac and fries good healthy living – well, healthier than risking the toxic milk, gutter oil, exploding melons and the rest.

That's the skinny for the week! You can have this delivered to your inbox each week by subscribing for email updates, or if you prefer hearing about these by social media, please follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In or Google+, or subscribe to our RSS feed. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future articles, please let us know.

Here are this week's highlights of articles that should give you a deeper insight into the dynamic art of selling your wares to Chinese consumers. This week you can feast your eyes on information about understanding Chinese consumers, branding in China, the Internet in China, outbound Chinese tourists, car tastes, luxury goods and film in China.

Understanding Chinese Consumers

Middle class ready to spend in China: Some interesting statistics on Chinese consumer habits and intentions for household purchases resulting from a survey of middle class Chinese.

What Chinese Want: More valuable insights on Chinese consumers from author Tom Doctoroff, such as strong brands successfully crossing into numerous categories and keeping communications simple as there is a lot of clutter – the average consumer in Shanghai sees three times as many adverts as their UK equivalent every day.

Outbound Chinese Tourists

The changing Chinese traveler: The 25 million first-time travelers that come from China every year aren't all part of tour parties as they once were, they're knowledgeable, sophisticated, tech-savvy, mainly younger than 45, and not just living in Shanghai & Beijing.

Film in China

That's the skinny for the week! You can have this delivered to your inbox each week by subscribing for email updates, or if you prefer hearing about these by social media, please follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In or Google+, or subscribe to our RSS feed. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future articles, please let us know.

Below is the weekly roundup of recent articles that should help you better understand the constantly changing dynamics of China's marketplace. This week you'll get insights into understanding Chinese consumers, branding in China, the Internet in China, Chinese tourists, and the regular favorite, food and beverages in China.

Brands in China

New Lease on Life for Some Old Brands: Just as is happening in many countries, Chinese consumers are getting nostalgic and are becoming increasingly interested purchasing some of their old brands again.

The Internet in China

Brand websites play key role in China: If you're selling in China, make sure your website is up to scratch. A recent poll has found that Chinese consumers view company websites as the biggest drivers of awareness and purchase intent.

Chinese Tourists

What Chinese Want – Interview Part I: Another interview with Tom Doctoroff about his new book 'What Chinese Want' containing some interesting observations about Chinese consumers. One relevant observation about Chinese tourists is that they are more interested in purchasing luxury goods or “collecting” destinations for show off purposes back home than experiencing other cultures.

Below is the weekly roundup of recent articles that should help you better understand the constantly changing dynamics of China's marketplace. This week you'll get a better insight into Chinese consumers, food and beverage and social media in the Middle Kingdom.

Understanding Chinese Consumers

Three Myths About Chinese Consumers: A well circulated article illustrating the evolving Chinese market, challenging commonly held beliefs about Chinese consumer habits such as not spending money on their homes, a love of flashy bling and Chinese not enjoying experience.

China’s Promiscuous Consumers: And another insight into China’s consumers’ loyalty to brands and their tendency to be adventurous when trying out new brands and products.

Chinese consumers savvier: Findings from American Chamber of Commerce research has indicated that Chinese consumers are maturing and are prepared to pay more for better quality goods, but are increasingly expecting better value for money.

China to drink more white wine, says study: And not surprisingly, white wine’s appeal in China is on the up, especially for high quality varieties such as New Zealand’s Sauvignon Blanc – it still only accounts for around 85% of wine consumption in China though.

Chinese Social Media

The Rise of Social Media in China: A nice infograph outlining the staggering numbers of social media in China and just how relevant it has become as a channel to target Chinese consumers.